[...]... the feed-back, and raw data, needed for the brain to function as co-ordinator We know little about the nervous functions and behaviour of the honeybee larva, mainly because it lives in a very stable and uneventful environment and needs to do little besides eat and grow With the adult, we are dealing with one of the most advanced of insects, with an enormous repertoire of behaviour patterns and the... recognize sights if suddenly taken out and released in country which it has already flown over We can train it to come to various shapes to collect sugar and it can tell the difference between a square and a cross, though not between a square and a circle The honeybee can see colour and differentiate between shades of at least some colours as well as we can, The spoon-shaped mandibles, adapted for moulding... practical accomplishment Life cycle and metamorphosis Having looked briefly at the anatomy and physiology of the honeybee we must now look at its development and at the origins of members of the three castes The honeybee goes through four stages during its life cycle, these are the egg, the larva, the pupa and finally the imago or adult The eggs of the honeybee are parthenogenetic, that is they will... legless larva is very soon surrounded with the white bee milk from the hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands of the nurse bees If the larva is in a queen cell more and more of the white bee milk, called in this case royal jelly, is added until the larva is floating in a mass of food and eating to its fill all the time, up to and for a day after the cell is sealed over with its cap of wax A worker larva is... queen, worker and drone The three different types of bee in the colony are called castes The differences can easily be seen on pages 13 and 33 and in fig 6 The queen is the longest of the three, her wings extending only about half way along her abdomen, which is pointed at the rear For her size her head is proportionally smaller than the other two and she appears to be longer in the legs and more 'spidery'... almost nothing The worker is the smallest of the three, being about half their weight, and its wings do not quite cover the abdomen, which is pointed Its head is proportionally quite large and triangular in shape and the legs fairly short The worker is specially adapted to its work, and the biting mouth parts, or mandibles, are spoon shaped, without teeth, so that it can mould wax Its third pair of... required, and the short, stout alkaline gland is usually considered to produce a lubricant for the sting mechanism Nervous system Every animal needs a mechanism which will allow it to test its environment and keep it from harm, or bring it to food and good conditions In complex animals this job is done by the nervous system, and the actions of the animal are co-ordinated by the large collection of interconnected... ones) and queen cells, which are much larger, thimble shaped, and hang down rather than lying horizontally The queen lays unfertilized eggs in drone cells and fertilized ones in the other two: there is still argument as to exactly how she is able to do this but the best explanation from various pieces of research is that she measures the diameter of the cell with her front legs and if it is drone-cell... smaller subbrains or ganglia spread through the body The larval honeybee shown in fig 4 shows the brain and the string of ganglia running along the body on the lower, or ventral, side Ganglia are more or less autonomous within their own segments but can be controlled and fig 4 (above) and the photograph (right) show the main organs of the larval honeybee The additional dark branching line in the photograph... larvae and royal jelly fed to the queen This difference may be due to different proportions of the output of the two glands involved in the production of bee milk, or perhaps to some additional 'hormonal' substance fed to the queen larva It is certain, however, that the old idea that worker larvae are fed on pollen and honey only after the first three days is incorrect Brood food is always the major part . class="bi x0 y0 w1 h1" alt="" Introducing the honeybee The honeybee colony consists of a queen, who is mother to the rest, and worker honeybees numbering about 10 ,000 in the winter and rising. below the honey, and pollen is usually stored in worker cells in a band between the brood and the honey, but may also be interspersed amongst the brood by some strains of bees. Adult bees will. with honey, and probably some pollen, and then by hanging up in clusters retain the heat produced by the metabolism of the honey in their muscles. The increased temperature and the amount of honey